Paris Olympics Participant Table Tennis Player Declares to Quits Sport Due to Lack of Money

After representing India at the Paris Olympics a few days back, 24-year-old Indian table tennis player Archana Kamath has made a surprising decision to quit the sport due to lack of proper funding.

She helped the Indian women’s table tennis team to achieve its best-ever Olympic performance by reaching the quarterfinals. , Archana, according to Indian Express, has informed her coach, Anshul Garg, that she no longer saw a future in professional table tennis. She now desires to pursue higher education in the United States.

She also questioned the viability of continuing in a sport like table tennis where financial rewards are minimal, and the chances of winning an Olympic medal is also hard.

Despite the support of organizations like TOPs and Olympic Gold Quest, paddlers’ earnings are negligible unless they reach the semi-finals in domestic and international tournaments. For Archana, this reality made continuing in the sport seem unfavourable of her long-term future.

Additionally, her ultimate goal had been to win an Olympic medal, which seems a distant read. The reality of competing in a sport long dominated by Chinese players, with only a handful of nations occasionally challenging their supremacy, made her reconsider her future.

Massimo Costantini, the national table tennis coach, expressed worries over India losing one of its top TT talent, insisting that the situation urgently demands a “stronger system” for athletes to build a career in the sport.